How Jones is cracking the whip over errors

ENGLAND have addressed their indiscipline issues by punishing players who make mistakes worthy of conceding a penalty during

training, writes Duncan Bech, of the Press Association.

Veteran scrum-half Ben Youngs revealed that Eddie Jones introduced the measure during the build-up to the World Cup in the hope of eradicating the type of error that has long been an Achilles heel.

Any players who commit offences such as straying offside are punished with a series of gruelling exercises.

England face New Zealand in Saturday’s semi-final and Leicester Tigers star Youngs knows his team must be pinpoint in their accuracy if they are to topple the world champions.

“We put a big emphasis on our discipline throughout pre-season and at the weekend it’s going to be absolutely vital for that,” Youngs said.

“If boys did things in training they were sent to the corner of the pitch to get a bit of a flogging and stuff.

“The punishment would be a few down-ups, a few runs – it’s normally the big boys who spent the time there and they would go with the (strength and conditioning) coach.

“It’s something that we haven’t always been terrific at, but certainly in this tournament we’ve been very, very good.

“We’ve been pleased at how we’ve been able to make sure we’ve stayed disciplined.

“I didn’t get a flogging. I was too disciplined so I never went there. It was just for things like offsides and everything like that.”